Sustainable Tourism in Tuscany

The Italian region of Tuscany and city of Florence are top tourist destinations globally. The area is home to a vast array of exceptionally valuable historical and cultural sites. The city of Florence (380,000 inhabitants) is the destination of almost 4M tourists per (year 2016), with a growth of over 5% per year.

While tourism is a fundamental pillar of Florence’s economy, there is debate on the optimal balance between the economic benefits of tourism, its impacts on the city fabric and resources, the implications on communities, and the over-utilization of places (tourism tends to concentrate in time and on a small number of iconic places, exceeding the carrying capacity of the areas.)

This project aims to support local authorities in understanding and measuring tourism beyond traditional surveys and statistics so that they can explore and design solutions for sustainable tourism in the city. The project partner (Toscana Promozione Turistica) and data partner (Vodafone Italy) are providing anonymized data that will be used to identify patterns of tourism in time and space.